Podcast: Collaborating to Improve Care for Medicaid and Uninsured Populations in Staten Island, NY


Joseph Conte, PhD, Staten Island Performing Provider System

Joseph Conte, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Staten Island Performing Provider System (SI PPS), an alliance of clinical and social service providers focused on improving the quality of care and overall health for Staten Island’s Medicaid and uninsured populations. SI PPS is one of 25 groups across the state working on the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program, which aims to fundamentally restructure the health care delivery system by reinvesting in Medicaid to reduce avoidable hospital use. Dr. Conte discussed how the collaboration is working to improve care coordination to better address residents’ social and medical needs.

Additional Resources:

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Takeaways from the Interview

In the words of Dr. Joseph Conte…

1. Use data to focus efforts on areas that will have the greatest impact

“Early on, there was true data-driven consensus around the programs that needed to be focused on and why. The ability to understand what the gaps and challenges were going in allowed us to start very quickly. The planning process, access to population health-level data, and picking the right programs was a key to our success.”

2. Do not assume that competitors cannot benefit from partnership

“Competition does not prohibit collaboration. Partners who compete for patients understand that collaboration for population health improvement is the main priority, and that has certainly been very gratifying and something that we did not quite expect coming out of the gate. We have seen that there is an important need for partners to come together to deliver a full scope of services.”

3. Health information exchanges can play a critical role in coordinating services for patients

“From a data sharing standpoint, we recognize from our experience that patients want their providers to understand the services that they are getting across the continuum. Information and consent protocols could definitely be modernized and streamlined so that information can be shared in a more seamless and transparent fashion between health and social service providers.”

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